A friend shared this with me...what a blessing in what has been a challenging time for me in my walk...
"Hope is always about what isn't," I say. And then, weaving its way through my accusations, silently and gently squeezing in, just in time, YET falls from Heaven and slips into place.
This word finds its way through a small space between our tightly clasped hands. The word adds itself, completing and changing the meaning, filling our hearts with truth, and overflowing them with hope. In that instant I say and know the truth: Hope is not about what isn't. Hope is always about what isn't yet.
We sink to our knees and whisper timid words because of what isn't yet.
In moments where we trudge through life between a weathered cross and a not-yet-empty tomb, it brings us to our knees. It causes us to lay our quivering and undone hearts on makeshift altars in the night. When did life twist to need these hopeless prayers of crying out and pouring out and wringing out our hearts together in the dark? When did we first notice just how small we are?
When I stumble over disappointments in the dark, and feel swept away in hopelessness, even then it is hope that causes me to cry out to the One who is faithful, despite my chronic faithlessness.
Our situation hasn't changed, but on our altar, we've shifted our grip. No longer holding on for dear life, together we hold fast to the One who gives life. We have put our hope, again, in Him. We send forth heavy sighs of hope for unknowns that are yet to be.
And though we don’t yet see it, our hands and hearts are open to receive this hope that does not disappoint.
